Happy Valentine’s Day? Teacher-centered education



I wish you could see this kid dance!


I have no nice new pictures of beautiful things to show you, so I’m posting some older pictures of the beautiful children from my primary school’s school concert from last year. However, hopefully none of these have been posted before, so they'll be new tot you!  Other than the child posted above, the remaining photos are all of my Grade Six learners from last year.  They are in Grade Seven now, and I refer to them as "my kids" in the captions.  My heart bursts with pride fro them!

Hopefully, after Monday, Valentine’s Day, I’ll have current fun stuff to show you.

One of the goals of education reform in South Africa is to move from a teacher-centered to a student-centered classroom. What is the difference between teacher-centered instruction versus student-centered instruction? Simply, the student is the most important person in the classroom, instead of the teacher being the most important person in the classroom.

I’ve never understood how extraordinarily difficult this shift will be for the South African school system--from teacher-centered to student-centered—until now.

In the USA, we do a nice job of having student-centered instruction in our K-12 classrooms. Teachers in the USA want their kids to succeed and good teachers will do everything in their power to support their kids in learning and succeeding. For many teachers, again, the good ones, who have unsuccessful lessons or a struggling student, we will analyze what we, as the teachers, are doing wrong and make changes in our lessons to improve instruction or find ways to better help a struggling student.

In the USA educational system, we do tend to shift to teacher-centered classroom at the university level; after all, the word “professor” conveys the message “I know and profess and you (who know nothing) must listen.” In the college classroom, this is best illustrated in the “lecture” style of teaching: the professor stands before many students, sometimes as many as 300, and the students furiously attempt to note everything this wise one is saying. However, even at the university level, there is a shift to a more collaborative teaching and learning style, as is one example in with peer-review of student writing in freshman writing classes. With our current teaching/learning trend, we have decided that learning best takes place in smaller classrooms with more collaborative methods.

In all our schools and universities, the teach is there to serve the students; the whole learning environment is centered around supporting the students; the school works together and is proud of their students, and sporting activities and anything extracurricular highlights the talents of the students. We work very hard to keep our students happy and succeeding. And as a rule, the whole school has a loyalty and pride in itself, evidenced in “school spirit.”

Now I’m going to shift into my observations of the South African school system, with its current “teacher-centered” form of instruction. I will provide my disclaimer here: I am writing of what I observe in my schools in South Africa, not all of them. And too, my observations are prejudiced by my personal biases that I bring from my own cultural background and experiences. And as ever, who is to say that “our way--my way--is the right way.”




My grade six class -- they are in grade seven now!


I spent most of my time at the primary school last year, instead of the college (I will tell you why in my next blog posting), and my initial observations of the South African school system were at the primary school level. I was, of course, horrified by the corporal punishment administered, hated seeing the 600 students—young children--crammed in great numbers into too-small classrooms with unbearable learning conditions: blistering hot or freezing cold, no water to drink, no clean toilet facilities, and their teachers seemingly sitting in the staffroom pulling their hair out because of the paperwork required of them demonstrate to their supervisors that they are complying with policy. (In fact, I believe the educator’s primary purpose, in the current state of affairs, is to make sure they are complying with school and departmental policies, and are spending the majority of their school days preparing their reports and compiling their evidence instead of teaching their students.) Of the school’s miserable pass-rate, the educators would reply, “our learners are slow-learners (stupid) and cannot be taught.” However, what outraged me the most, other than the corporal punishment, was watching how the teachers interacted with the students: it’s as though the students existed only for the educator’s beck-and-call, they existed as their personal slaves, if you will. The children couldn’t wait to be summoned to fetch their teacher’s cold drinks, or carry heavy boxes of books, or even chop a tree trunk to build a fire. (When the school is short of funds, they cannot purchase propane, and the school cooks will prepare the children’s meals over an open flame; this is, of course, no small task when feeding +500 people.)

I could not imagine how students could love and respect their teachers, when their teachers were, in my view, so cruel to them, but they certainly did love and respect their teachers. In fact, I did not hold the respect of my students, because I would not beat them, until they saw how well they could learn without being beaten—and how fun it could be. (Then, gratefully, they came to love and respect me, and would miss me and ask for me if I could not come.) In my primary school, I did sense an attitude of pride toward their school—a sense of reciprocated love and loyalty between the teachers and students. And I did sense that (some of) the teachers genuinely loved their students. All of this was evidenced in school functions: Heritage Day, Parent’s Day, World AIDS Day, and the end-of-the-school-year celebrations. During these celebrations, everyone was happy, having fun, and very proud of their school community.



Two of my guys... I'm very proud of them.



On the other hand, in my return to the college this year, and especially with coordinating our Valentine’s Day Event to be held on Monday, I’ve observed the prejudices of the teachers toward the students on yet another level. The lecturers --here again, not all of them, but most, I think) feel contempt for their students and are more than a bit put-off at having to teach them. At having to teach them?

Again, coming from my background, I have worked for universities that plan and host events all for the benefit of their students. At many college campuses, a regular feature is a “welcome back” event hosted at the start of each new school year. Often, the event is held out-of-doors, and the school has vendors to come and provide free soft drinks, snacks, and small promotional gifts; often there is music or other kinds of entertainment; often school groups will set up booths to welcome and introduce themselves to incoming students. There is a general sense of fun and celebration created by the school, by the educators (adults) for the students. I was hoping to coordinate and help organize a similar event, put on by the school (the educators, the adults) for the students. My goal was to have a fun event catered for the students, to celebrate Valentine’s Day, while at the same time promoting HIV/AIDS awareness.

That was my hope.

I’ve really gotten a good dose of “teacher-centered attitudes versus student-centered attitudes.” Time and time again, I’ve come up against the attitude of, “What? Are you CRAZY? Why would I participate in such an event (that honors or celebrates the students)?” Time and time again, when I ask community organizations to come support our event (the students), I’m countered with “What is in it for me?” “How much is in your budget for me?”

I’m more than a bit put off by this attitude, as I was told South Africans honor a tradition of “Ubuntu,” or a common belief of helping others; a common attitude that all are responsible for helping others. However, I do not see my community practicing Ubuntu—at least for my college students; it seems more like my community members have been corrupted by the lure of money and that money is the only incentive to them for “helping others.” (And seeing these same people, business owners and organization leaders, who already have money and power, and use it in corrupt ways, is a whole other blog post.) So, it’s been a disheartening few weeks.

In the USA, a soft-drink vendor, like Coke or Pepsi, will often provide free refreshment for these kinds of events because a) they are recognized as a supporter of the school and the students and therefore earn a reputation for supporting their communities, and b) they know it is cheap advertisement for their product, and they have a good opportunity to “brand” themselves onto potential life-long customers. (I know; this in and of itself is inherently creepy.) I was hoping this opportunity, to raise their reputations and advertise their wares, would be a good enough sell on our community businesses to please come and participate in our school event and to please help make it fun for our students. No dice.

At the campus level, I would run into these kinds of brick walls: for our refreshment budget, I was hoping we could have a special treats for the students; it would always go back to: we’re feeding the guests and educators very nicely, will provide an elegant, catered, sit-down meal to the VIPS and the students will receive 4 slices of bread. (I’m not kidding.) I would plead: Please make this a special day for the student; Please help me think of ways to make it fun for the students. No dice.

We held a planning meeting for our event this week and I asked all interested in the event to come. We had about 20 to show, a feat that, in and of itself, I’m told, is a success story in itself. We had Hospitality educators come (who are preparing the food), Life Orientation educators to come (who are developing lesson plants so that our event is a learning opportunity for the students and one they’ll be given credit for), and the Student Support Officer. We had asked members of the SRC to come, the Student Representative Council, but they didn’t. It was very important to me that students could come, as how could we plan an event for our students without their input. In the end, we had two students there, one of my former students who had learned of the event and wanted to assist. We even had members from our police department come help plan our event: they have peer mentors in their HIV/AIDS outreach division.




My kids


Because I’m an American, and because I’m coming from a society that practices democracy on many levels, I was hoping that we, as a collective group of people with a common interest, (Valentine’s Day), could come together for a lively conversation with everyone feeling equally represented and feeling comfortable to share their own opinions. Not only did this not happen, I flubbed the protocol as the facilitator (in my culture, if you’re late, you are the loser; in this culture, if you’re late, everything has to stop so the late-comer can be honored) in that I ignored the late-comers and we continued on with our conversation. (I would later be publically upbraided for not properly introducing all of the participants, but how can participants be properly introduced if they all arrive late and at a trickle in half hour segments??) The men of the group dominated (and seemed to be challenging each other), women of the group demurred, (even though a very powerful female Head of Department was present), and the students were ignored and silent. As a facilitator, I would come back, again and again, to the students: What do you guys think? Do you have any suggestions of how we can make this event fun for you? The students were visibly shaken at my directing attention to them, and said something along the lines of “Sorry, Mam. We are only students here. Our opinions do not matter.”

In the end, on Monday, we hope to have an event, for students, that provides helpful information to promote HIV/AIDS awareness; we have invited special guests to make presentations and address the students; we have a team from the Health Department to provide HIV/AIDS counseling and testing; we have asked the choir to sing; we have asked for the Mayor of Taung to come and open our day for us; we have plans for refreshments to be served.

In all of this planning and preparation, which seems little and rushed to me (in the USA, I would have never taken on such an event without 4-6 months of planning—this has happened in 3.5 weeks), I have NO IDEA how this will come off. All of the phoning is completed, all of the faxing finished, all of the emails sent. I have made personal appearances, visited and pleaded, begged for money or donations. I have cajoled and schmoozed. There is nothing to be done now but show up on Monday and wait for the event to unfold.

As a unifying gesture, so everyone in the school can participate and support our event—in a gesture of school spirit--we have asked all of our campus community, lecturers and students, to wear red on Monday.

Yesterday, an educator pulled me aside to express her dismay: “Ms. Kaye, do the lecturers really need to wear red on Valentines’ Day?" (As if she couldn't believe she was being asked to lower herself to the students' standards.  She added, "Can't only the students wear red?” Eish!

Teacher-centered, indeed.

Soon,
Karen




This shot is a bit blurry, but I love the mood of it.  Again, my kids.



Say, "Cheese!"



Our campus choir

 


Colleagues

 


My former and current supervisors with a happy award-winning student

 

All of us singing the South African National Anthem



The 2011 incoming students

The college had its official “Academic Opening” Ceremony this week. What exactly is an “official” Academic Opening? Well, my college, Vuselela FET, has six campus locations and to open each campus “officially,” the CEO and other VIPs come visit and we have a big “to do”-- a big, formal ceremony with caps, gowns, music, food, and awards. Ours was this week.

It’s so weird, because, in my little brain, I think these people would know that it’s kind of a big deal to have a Peace Corps Volunteer working for them. Or at least, in the USA, we tend to think it is something special to have a Peace Corps Volunteer working in communities in other nations. However, and alas, my schools seem to not think of my presence in a special way. They never provide a space for me in their programs, to address the students, so the students (and other staff) know who I am and why I am here. This is all very sad for me, and a bit frustrating, because I’m HERE to WORK WITH THE STUDENTS. You would think (I would think), the school administration would want me to address the students as we open the new school year. I kind of barged my way into the program last year and made space in their program for me to do this, but this year, I just let it go. I showed up as the token photographer. Everyone is always pleased to have a token photographer.

Last year, there was a lot of turmoil at my college campus and I somewhat ducked out to go work at the primary school instead. Last year, at the primary school, I had already gone through the process of setting boundaries with my camera. This entails a LOT of saying, “No, I’m sorry, I cannot take personal pictures”; “No, I’m sorry. I cannot take your picture, then ride an hour away to have it developed, and then bring it back for you, even if you pay me”; and “No, I’m sorry. I cannot do house calls for family portraits nor can I come to your house to photograph your car after the accident for your insurance company.”

The people that I’m living with LOVE to have their photos taken and they can get very aggressive about it. For example, if they are unhappy with the shot, they ask you to stay with them, for hours, to retake it 20 or more times. Sometimes, and quite often, especially with school children, (but even adults will do this), crowds will approach me and yank the camera out of my hands in order to view and approve of each shot. All of this crowding and grabbing is unpleasant for me, so it’s a lot of work, initially, to set clear boundaries around the camera and picture taking.

This news, of me not accommodating personal portraits or other personal requests, is not good news to hear and makes people less than happy. I need to be consistently firm and say it repeatedly without exception; and, not only to the kids, but to the staff members and other adults as well.

(This is all somewhat confusing to me, because in almost every case, even with the students, they ALL have their own cameras in their phones and all take pictures of themselves and others—all of the time!!)

It’s something of a tiresome, ongoing process, and I’m not well-liked in the meantime, but eventually, everyone finally understands that the camera belongs to Peace Corps (a handy little fib I tell for personal protection), and that the camera is for official use only, and eventually everyone quits asking and accepts the fact, and are happy with the fact, that I’m there to take pictures of their functions. And then, the young kids at least, ham it up for the camera. It makes great and easy photography.

I had already set clear boundaries with the primary school last year, but had forgotten I would need to do it all over again with the college kids. My saying “no” so many times, especially when I’m trying to better know and relate to the college kids, felt overwhelmingly distasteful. However, I got through it and snapped some nice shots, and am sharing all of them with the college (so the college can deal with making reproductions), but a lot of students, and even educators, were not happy at my not complying and providing their very own “Vogue Shoot.” (However, the idea of a “Vogue Shoot” might turn into a profitable fund raiser idea—especially if I can use the school’s camera!!)

The other thing I was reminded of, and saddened by, was the fact that most of older, teen-aged students and students in their early-twenties, and ALL adults (well, most) hate to smile for photographs and refuse to smile for photographs, (and can become aggressive about not smiling for photographs); so I was mourning the loss of my beautiful portrait shots of smiling, happy people. But then, I remembered I do have other events throughout the school year with the younger children, so I will be getting my gorgeous shots of beautiful, smiling children.

Which got me to thinking: Why do I insist on displaying only happy faces? Why is it not ok to show a photo of someone who is not smiling? And even still, why is it not ok to show a photograph of someone that appears to be scowling?

In America, we’ve learned that a posed, smiling shot makes the best photograph (well, as far as portrait shots go) and our kids, of course, grow up mugging for the cameras that are ever-present, chronicling their every move for all of their lives, so are well-rehearsed in mugging for the camera. So USAmericans have, I think, grown accustomed to, and even if the pose and smile are tiresome, will cooperate for a “candid” shot. But adults here, steadfastly refuse.

I am the USAmerican with USAmerican standards, trying to enforce the “smile rule” on all of my South African peeps. That caused a bit of conflict for me during our Academic Opening as well.

SAY CHEESE!

Soon,
Karen

PS.  You may think I'm  doing pretty good capturing those imposed smiles with these compliant, smiling faces here... I took 350 photographs. Three-hundred-fifty. These are some of the few what were "smile-able."

These two look like trouble! But they're not.  The gentleman in the right is my former student.

Fellow English-teaching colleagues



My reluctantly posing for a photo



Housemates

The photo is of a lovely wild zinnia that I noticed and fell in love with when I arrived in Africa last year. (Or whenever it was that I arrived in Africa… I’m losing track…) One morning, as I was walking to my primary school, I noticed a whole stand of these growing by the side of the road. They are all this brilliant red and the blooms only reach the diameter size of a quarter, but I just love them. In fact, I love them so much, that I gathered seeds and was intending to send them to all of my “flower lovers” back home in the States--and I know many, many flower lovers! I would walk by every day and pause to enjoy their beauty and I couldn’t wait until the flowers were spent so I could harvest the lovely dried seed heads. I harvested many, many of the wild zinnia seed heads, and put them aside to dry well before mailing them home to various friends and family members.

However, I knew better than to do this. Not only is it illegal to import seeds from a different country, I also know enough that regional flora grows where it is planted for a reason: because it is indigenous to the area in which it lives. These wild zinnias are living in Africa, not in the USA. Also, I know how devastating an “invasive or exotic species” can be in an already-established flora and fauna.

For example, in the USA, European starlings have become a pest and a “problem bird” because it lives, thrives, and reproduces very well in the USA. How did it come to the USA? Someone from England loved the bird so much that when he decided to come to the USA to live, he brought these “beloved birds” with him. Asian kudzu is another example of how an invasive/exotic flora can run wild. It was brought to the USA to assist with erosion control and now you can’t ride down any of our southern highways without seeing it swallow up everything in sight.

But I loved these zinnias so much, I felt very compelled to share them with family back home. (As did, I’m sure, the gentleman who so loved the European starling!) Eventually, I resigned myself to the fact that I simply couldn’t in good conscience do so, and dumped the lot of the seed outside my windows. I should have gone to the trouble to plant them carefully, but I did not. Nevertheless, these lovely beauties defied my carelessness and decided to grow anyway! And I’m so glad they did, because they have become my housemates. They send me off to work each day with their bright-red, cheery faces and it makes me very, very happy to see them.

Most of you know that a village dog has adopted me: Ounaai. As a fellow mammal and as a household resident, she is my most dedicated housemate. I love that Ounaai is an outside dog and she is very low-maintenance. Well, after the initial “start up” of spaying, worming, de-flea-ing, etc., provided by angels residing in the USA, she is now low-maintenance. And a special thank you to the USAmericans who provided for her—for us—in this way. Ounaai has brought me great happiness in my African home!

She loves to scratch her belly by lying with her legs straight back, and pulling her very long self along on the carpet or grass with her front legs: it’s a land version of “dog paddling” and she doubles me over in laughter to watch her.

My home is equipped with security doors and she is small enough to move through the bars. In this way I can leave my home open for her and she comes in and out as she pleases.

Although she has her run of all of Africa, she does choose to stay close. If I’m working at my desk, she is under my feet. If I move to another room, she follows right behind. She sleeps under my bed and barks at any suspicious noise she hears outside. Although she is welcome to stay inside my house when I’m gone, she remains on my front porch, regardless of the weather, to guard our shared abode.

Her new way of sharing companionship is to follow me out into the garden. I was away from my garden for nearly a month during the rainy season, and as a consequence, the weeds—and African weeds are FIERCE—have taken over. Ounaai likes it though, because she follows me out and lies in the tall weeds as I attempt to harvest. You can tell she delights in her “dogness,” in her way of lying hidden in the very tall grass. And that swirly-round thing that house dogs do when trying to settle? I’ve watched the village dogs exhibiting the same gesture, actually in the tall grass to dampen it and lie down. The gesture makes sense when you see it in its natural setting.

Ounaai has become a true companion and I’m already extremely fond of her. And--BLAST! I didn’t want a dog!!

Not quite as reliable are other housemates, and most of these are temporary—just visiting, so to speak. I used to be, like almost everyone I know and meet, very afraid of spiders and snakes. As I’ve learned more about them, I have come to admire and appreciate them very much. I’m not crazy about spiders in my house, but I don’t mind them. (And of course, don’t want snakes of any variety in my house!) I have a beautiful orb spider outside one of my front windows and each evening, as I’m watching the sunset, I watch her acrobatics as she spins and swirls to travel from one side of her web to the other. I believe she delights in the African sunsets as much as I! I especially like to watch her because she lives outside.

I have a different variety of garden spider that is sharing my living space, and she too, is outside. I haven’t gotten a very good look at her, because she resides in her web upside down and I haven’t seen her since our initial introduction. I’m hoping she’s still with me and will pose one day for a picture. While these garden spiders can look quite threatening, they are harmless and do a great job of keeping garden pests at bay. I usually fall deeply in love with my garden spiders and am heartbroken when the summer season ends, which sadly, also brings about the end of spider season too.

I’m not sure exactly where they are coming from, but I have a whole slew of baby spiders living in the vicinity of my bathtub. I try to relocate these whenever I’m drawing water for a bath or for laundry, but as I scoop one out, another appears. They are very tiny and I have no idea what kind they are, but I feel assured that they are valuable and necessary, so I attempt to rescue each one. I scoop them out with an empty toilet paper roll. I try to guide them inside the “tunnel” and drop them out the other by shaking the tube outside my window. In this way, I hope, they are outside of my house, yet still alive to flourish elsewhere—perhaps even in my garden!

I have a visiting bat, or perhaps one that stays in the house and comes out only on occasion. I had one come in a week or so ago, and watched him bounce around my bedroom trying to find a way out. This is no easy task for him, as my bedroom windows are covered in security bars and I have sheets of fabric pegged up as curtains. I love watching him circle around my bedroom, as I’m protected under my mosquito net (my anything-but-mosquito net!) and have a front row seat. It is a bit frightening though, because he bangs into the walls in an attempt to escape, and I worry about him becoming injured. Last night, he flew about and landed in a protected area behind my door. He heard, or otherwise sensed, a moth buzzing and bumping about near my overhead light and came flying out of his hiding place in hopes of a snack. (In fact, perhaps the bats are drawn into my house because the moths are drawn to my light as I’m reading.) The bat actually missed the moth, but did escape out of the hole in my broken window pane. I was worried the broken glass in the pane might harm him, but he seems to have escaped without injury. When lights were out, I heard Ounaai chasing and eventually chomping the huge moth that had earlier enticed the bat. Oh well--at least SOMEONE had a snack!

And I have a mouse. I’ve never seen this mouse, but s/he lives in my kitchen, and curiously, leaves my food alone. S/he does, however, leave “evidence” of nightly visits.

I learn a great deal from those I live most intimately with. When I was residing temporarily in Table Mountain National Park for the December holidays, I met and shared living quarters with a lovely woman, also a visitor to South Africa. She was from elsewhere in the world, a European, and she helped me better understand my “USAmerican-ness” probably better than anyone I’ve encountered in my life. But she gifted me in another way: she taught me to do the dishes.

I love to cook and do cook for myself, but tend to take shortcuts, mostly because I hate scrubbing dirty pans with cooked on/baked on food. For example, some mornings I will cook oatmeal for myself, while others, when I’m feeling short on time (or lazy), I will eat it raw—so I need not bother with scrubbing a breakfast pan. Likewise, I often eat eggs boiled so I need not scrub my fried egg off of the bottom of a pan. Good grief, have you noticed how difficult it is to clean a fried egg off the bottom of a pan? I have to use bleach to loosen it… And we put this substance in our bodies?? Now I understand why tempera paint (made from eggs) lasts FOREVER. And what about grilled cheese? Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to clean grilled cheese off of a plate? And we put this substance in our bodies? While many of you worry that I don’t eat enough meat, even in the States, I avoid cooking meat—because I don’t like to clean the greasy pots and pans! Gross!

Ok, back to the lovely housemate. Every single morning of every single day, every single lunch of every single lunchtime, and every single supper and every single snack, this woman would dirty every dish in the house to prepare herself a lovely, hot meal or snack: every single dish in the house! These meals weren’t even fancy: they consisted of simple fare, often only of toasted bread and pasta or a lovely fish omelet or soup. Even with her coffee break, she would trouble herself with toasted bread—toasted bread, like, in a pan on the stovetop! I would watch her and my head would hurt thinking of all those dishes she would wash; but in each and every instance, for each and every meal, she would go to the trouble.

I admired the way she troubled herself to practice self-care. Since my return to the village, I have been taking great care to cook wonderfully hot meals for myself throughout the day. And yes, I’m scrubbing pots and pans with cooked-on food, but each time I scrape, I think of her and the important lesson she taught me: life is too short to compromise on any meal, that each meal should be special and delicious!! And with this lesson and this practice, I’ve incorporated great joy into my life!

I am blessed with an abundance of rich housemates in Africa!

Soon, Karen



Spoiled

The sun rises over Pudimoe.

I feel spoiled with the beautiful South African sky. It is gorgeous most of the time but I live for the sunrises and sunsets. This was a sunrise this week: it was well worth getting up at 5:00 am for! (South Africa does not acknowledge Daylight Savings Time.) This sunrise was so pretty I feel inspired to rise each of my remaining days in South Africa just to see the loveliness of each new day. I visited Key West, Florida, once, and was told that Key West is home of the most beautiful sunsets in the world. I think South Africa may be a very strong rival for this distinction. But I feel spoiled living in such decadent beauty of the South African sky, and will miss it when I return home.

I feel spoiled with the recent rainfall in my area. With rain coming down steadily for four days straight, my little patch of Kalahari thornveld has transformed into a wetland. The earth smells rich and wet, like a forest floor; dragonflies buzz by my windows like they wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else; flocks of butterflies have come alive and are feasting in the newly opened blooms of my campus’s lush new growth. For once, the rich wetness of my surroundings feels like home—my Kentucky home! I feel spoiled by the vibrant aliveness and the thick, humid air and am resenting the return of the blistering hot African sun which is drying everything out.

Ounaai is spoiled with her post-op pampering. She’s grown fat and happy and I swear this dog smiles. Currently, she’s thin and small enough to squeeze through the openings in my “burglar bars” (South Africa’s name for security doors), but not for much longer!! She’s making herself more and more comfortable in my trailer, and is becoming more of an inside dog than out. So Ounaai is being spoiled by my American dog-care tendencies.

Growing up, as an adolescent, I was terribly cruel to a neighborhood boy. He was a sweet kid, my age, but he had a speech impediment and was from an obviously poor family. He was often disheveled and didn’t wear the current fashions. He was just a kid, trying to fit in with “our gang” and I remember our group taunting him mercilessly and excluding him at every opportunity. But he continued to hang around, hoping for a way into our exclusive club.

One day he invited us to his house after school and, as we were so snotty, I can’t imagine why we accepted the offer, but we did. He offered us a snack of jelly sandwiches and I remember being absolutely horrified by the fact that he scraped the mold off of the top of the jelly and proceeded to feed us from the spoiled jar.

I was highly offended, in my snotty little self, that this neighborhood boy would offer me spoiled food.

In the South African summer months, food obviously tends to spoil much more quickly. I find myself cutting mold off of bread, or cutting away the rotten places off my cabbage, and throwing out rotting cheese Even though I place my groceries on the window sill to cool in the evening temperatures, it’s only a race with time, trying to outrun the bacteria that spoils my food. In the heat of the summer temperatures, the bacteria win more battles and are consuming more of my food.

Each day, as I scrape the rot off of my food, I remember that neighborhood boy and how cruel I was to him. I wonder if he’d find any consolation in the fact that thirty years later, this spoiled USAmerican is finally learning her lessons with spoiled food.

Soon,

Karen



Ounaai growing fatter by the minute.



The rainy season

My former garden, now the jungle, becomes more and more frightening with each rainy day




Ounaai's salad is taller than she is

 


the dead end of our street is now a lake


This is my second rainy season in South Africa. It is the last week of January and I’m told it will rain from now until March and then stop completely until it resumes again next November.

This is my first rainy season in my trailer. I spent last year’s in the college girls’ dormitory and was nice and dry in my second-floor abode, completely protected from the weather. With the nice, large windows in my dorm room, I had an “IMAX” view of all of the African storms that blew through.

This year, I’m in my trailer and was delighted to find it very weather-resistant. I had one leaky window that I somewhat worried about, but overall, it was fine. However, on New Year’s Eve, a severe wind blew through and downed several trees and caused extensive structural damage throughout the campus. I was lucky, as far as structural damage goes, and came away with only broken bedroom windows.

Lucky, for sure, but am now dealing with a leaking mess as the rains continue to pour down. I’ve managed to plug the broken windows with a plastic table cloth which does a fabulous job of keeping the water out, but water came in for several days before I managed this unattractive repair. The carpet in my bedroom is soaked and the rain continues, so it doesn’t dry out.

The other problem is, my trailer, the wooden parts of it, are made from pressed wood. It seems that pressed wood becomes soggy cardboard when wet. Eish.

The other things I’ve noticed is that my window frames, door jambs, and plug sockets have all warped in a way to make closing doors difficult and plugging in my electric appliances difficult.

And nothing dries so everything feels wet and damp, even my bed: ick!

The other thing the rainy season brings, and that I had forgotten, is wave after wave of hoards of bugs! Yuck! The rain also seems to anger the biting ants and they become ferocious and the biting flies are bad too. Ounaai seems to be suffering the worst of it, as she has a fresh wound in her belly—and the bugs love it!

Ounaai has tired of her confinement, is tired of her leashed walks and enforced periods of rest, and is wanting to roam (and resume eating garbage). I worry that the muddy, messy water will infect her wound, so continue to imprison her.

So, I’m pretty grumpy and crabby and have no right to be: most of my neighbors live in tin shacks; their suffering is certainly worse.

Karen, Ounaai, and my village are longing for a sunny day or two to dry out and go out and play.

Soon,

Karen



more rain on the way



Finding happy work in Africa

My fan base—my mom—gently inquired “Have you stopped blogging?” No, I haven’t stopped blogging, but I’ve been crazy-busy with school. South Africa’s school calendar year runs from January-December with generous school breaks throughout the school year. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I guess you can say we’re “year-round schools.” I’ve had a bit of time this weekend to pause and catch my breath and to catch up with you!

And truth to tell, blogging was the primary source of happiness for me during my Peace Corps service to-date, but I've found pleny of happiness in other things now, and don't feel so compelled to blog so much. And when coming back to Cape Town, I realized I was yammering on about things that aren't really important...  But yes, I'm back and happy to be blogging.

The very strong wind storm knocked down several trees (and buildings!) at our campus and there is lots of clean up. One good thing that has come from the storm is that it has made firewood available to the poorer of our community members. Many people have visited the campus to retrieve wood and I wanted to show you one version of a donkey cart: as you can see in the photo, the rear-end of a truck bed serves as the trailer and the donkeys are hitched for pulling. The young boys that drive the donkeys can often be quite cruel.

Now to me and Africa--Yes, yes, I’m still deliciously happy in Africa! I thought my sudden and profound happiness might be temporary, but no, it’s still here! I think the shift in my happiness has come with finding happy work.

Peace Corps has only been coming to South Africa for eleven or twelve years now, since the fall of apartheid. While originally the South African government asked Peace Corps volunteers not to teach in the schools, as our teaching would displace resident South Africans from well-paying jobs, the government has since changed its mind in the wake of South Africa’s HIV/AIDS crisis.

My group, the one that came to Africa in 2009, was the first group allowed to teach in South African schools because of a critical teacher shortage (as a generation of South African teachers has perished in the HIV/AIDS crisis).

What did South African Peace Corps volunteers do when they weren’t allowed to teach in the schools? They assisted schools with various kinds of support and school projects: teacher training, school workshops, tutoring, computer training, school events (like World AIDS Day), etc. In coming to South Africa, while I was happy to teach, I really wanted to help support the schools with school/community projects.

For some reason I do not understand, education volunteers are introduced to their schools at the school year’s end, when everyone is the busiest trying to finish the school year: lessons need to be finished, reports need to be filed, and grades need to be turned in. The South African teachers and students are swamped at the end of the year, and well, to have a Peace Corps volunteer tagging along trying to figure out how best to help the schools is something of a difficult situation. (Or at least it was for me.) Although I had two months to get a feel for both of my schools (I teach for a technical college and a primary school), by the end of the school year and my introductory period, I felt clueless as to go a about school/community projects. I thought, What the heck, I’ll teach for both schools. In this way I’ll be in familiar terrain and I can scope out how to later coordinate school/community projects.

So that’s what I did my first year in Africa: I taught a business level English class for the college and I taught two sections of Grade Six English for the primary school

I learned very quickly that I was somewhat swamped with my teaching load, although my Peace Corps supervisor had warned me. Not only did I need to prepare to administer curriculum for two different grade levels, I was “thrown into the deep end” of swimming through how the South African school system works. One thing I was quite surprised by was the amount of paperwork thrown at South African educators: all of the administrative work seems quite beyond the pale to me. The policies and their resulting requirements are tricky too: lots of reading and interpretation. And I had a supreme advantage over my colleagues, as the policy documents are written in English. More than once I thought to myself, “Gosh, this is difficult to understand all on its own. I can’t imagine trying to understand it if English weren’t my first language.” It was like reading “lawyer-ese.” The other thing, as any good teacher can tell you, teaching is front-end loaded work; What I mean by this is, when you teach a brand new class for the first time, you really don’t know what works and what doesn’t, and your first year with a new class you see a lot of what doesn’t work, and then tweak things to the coursework runs better for future classes. It generally takes me a good year and a half to work out my course “bugs” and my classes aren’t really into top form until the second or even third year. And, well, Peace Corps volunteers don’t have that much time.

So, I found myself drowning in my teaching load, averaging 9.5 hour workdays, and working all weekends. Also, I was running back and forth between the schools, sometimes several times a day. But my workload with teaching wasn’t really the cause of my stress and unhappiness: as weird as it sounds, I felt isolated in my teaching.

What? How can one feel isolated teaching? You deal with people all day every day. Yes, this is true: I came to love my classes very much, and I felt very connected with my own students, but I felt very isolated from all of the other students, from the other educators and from the people in my community. I came and went, was always in a hurry, and felt very much “my own island.” As most of you know, I was pretty miserable for a long time.

Peace Corps, in its 50 years of service (2011 is Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary!), has learned that it takes quite a long time for (some) volunteers to feel comfortable in their communities and find happy work. Although the length of service asked of a Peace Corps volunteer is 27 months, and feels quite formidable going in, Peace Corps has learned that although 27 months seems a very long time, in reality, for the volunteer to be truly effective, 27 months isn’t a long enough period. Many, many former volunteers will say, “I had a very difficult first year, and my second was so much better and flew by in a blur.” They say this, because many of them didn’t find happy work until their second year. In fact, Peace Corps has learned this so well, that it is trying to make 3rd and 4th year extensions more desirable to established, in-country volunteers.

Perhaps in my eighteen months, I took a bit longer than the average volunteer to reach that happy point in my Peace Corps service. I’m just grateful that I stuck in there and kept trying. I was somewhat stubborn about it too—I felt I was being robbed of a happy Peace Corps experience and didn’t want to return home with an unhappy one!!

But all has changed for me, I’m happy to say. At the very end of last year’s school year I was relieved of my teaching duties so that I might better concentrate on school/community projects. (I was lucky and grateful that my supervisors and colleagues were as happy about the shift to project work as I.) The end of my last year’s school year was beyond satisfactory to me: in my primary school we participated in a World Wise Schools project (a letter exchange with a USAmerican school) and we hosted a World AIDS Day event. Everyone was happier: my principal was happier, my fellow educators were happier, the kids were happier (and I had much, much more exposure to many, many more of the school children), and the community members were much happier. (The community members in this case were the parents of the school children.) But most importantly, I was much happier.

So I was happy and joyous at the end of the school year last year, went to Cape Town, was happy and joyous there, and quite frankly, worried that on my return to my village, the happiness would have disappeared.

Not true, Oh I am so happy to report, not true. I’m crazy busy trying to pull together a Valentine’s Day Event for the college in February, where we hope to make a strong push for HIV/AIDS awareness. (Get it? Day of Love? Love one another safely?) We reported for school on the 10th of January, and feeling a time pinch (Valentine’s Day IS on February 14th!!), so I’ve been in planning meetings with my colleagues, begging for money from the college’s corporate center, writing letters begging for money and donations from local businesses and organizations. In short, sending a million faxes and following up with a million phone calls! And then too, following up with personal visits. But I’m having SO MUCH FUN and MEETING SO MANY PEOPLE than I had been. I finally feel that I’m doing the Peace Corps work I dreamed of doing: working with community members to build relationships and bringing community members together to better our lives. I feel ridiculously happy and so very grateful. I love my community, I love my life, and yes, finally, I LOVE MY PEACE CORPS EXPERIENCE! I’m a very lucky girl!
Soon,
Karen

Ounaai

“We can do no great things—only small things with great love.” --Mother Teresa

Ok, ok, and no, the looks are not deceiving you… Yes, that is a dog… Yes, that is a dog sleeping on my furniture. Yes, I am the person that has spouted “NO DOG” for more than a decade. Yes, I’m the person who claimed, “I can barely take care of myself! I can’t possibly care for another living thing!” So what happened?

This is Ounaai, the little dog that adopted me in November. Actually, I’ve learned she has two names: one provided by her Afrikaner daddy, Ounaai (OOO nay), and a second name given by her Indian daddy as well: Chakkra (Shah—KA-rah—and role the “r”). I guess I’ll continue to call her Ounaai, because that what I’ve been calling her all along, but will use Chakkra as her surname… Her surname? You mean, to name a dog like a human being? Like a CHILD??

I grew up in suburbia in the 70s and I must have lived through the first big push for leash laws and having pets spayed or neutered. I can remember we had dogs that ran wild outside and I remember these same dogs would sometimes have puppies. My parents were smart enough to know that if we had a family dog, spaying or neutering was a must, and well, having a pet is an investment in more ways than one. I remember my parents less than happy to hear our cries of, “Oh PLEASE, CAN WE KEEP THIS DOG?” when one followed us home, or sometimes, but very rarely, a cat. However, being tender-hearted as they are, we always had a family pet, and the family pet was always spayed or neutered and came and went in and out of the house at will (before the leash laws). In my family, a dog was loved and appreciated, but it was clear that the dog was a dog (and not a human being), ate regular dog food and sometimes table scraps, and well, we just didn’t pamper our pets.

In the last 10 or 15 years, I’ve noticed and have become increasingly irritated with the American trend of pampering pets: prescription dog food, dog super stores, dog beds, dog sweaters, dog Halloween costumes, dog snugglies, dog treats, dog portraits, vet house calls, and dogs so pampered they are carried, rather than walked. This trend grated my nerves and irritated me highly and I would think to myself, “There is so much suffering in the world, yet many of our dogs in the USA live better than I do.” I just didn’t get it, I just didn’t understand, I just couldn’t get my mind around it.

So, for most of my adult life, I haven’t owned a dog nor even desired to.

When I came to Africa, I noticed a lot of suffering: I noticed a lot of people suffering and I noticed a lot of animals suffering. I live with some of the most impoverished people in the world and I live with children who have lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. However, much to my dismay, it was the dying pigeon or the cruelly tethered cow that I would come home and cry about; It was the donkeys braying in desperation as they were brutally beaten by the young children trying to drive them that shredded my heart; It was the starving dog, wobbling on unsteady legs and too weak to stand that went right through me. I felt more sympathetic to the suffering of animals and couldn’t figure out why (and of course, felt extraordinarily guilty for it).

Ok, back to the dog: Ounaai. So, Ounaai shows up when I’m feeling especially down and she seems very happy to see me, the “wiggly-all-over-happy” and of course, endeared herself to me immediately; although, of course, I didn’t want a dog. I noticed right away that she was a very gentle dog and she seemed timid and afraid around people. I also noticed that she had recently had puppies and wondered if she had a puppy cache somewhere. She hung around for a few days and did that wiggly, very happy-to-see you thing, and then I did the thing I knew I shouldn’t: I fed her. At that point, she began to sleep in the pine needles under my trailer and would bark through the night at anything that she found threatening. I began to appreciate her protection and affection more and more. I went from feeding her crushed crackers and milk to buying dry dog food. (Notice the increased investment.) I learned that she isn’t all that crazy about dry dog food, because she has at least two other daddies that love to braii (the South African word for grilling meat) and feed her generously from their table. I put the dog food away but felt happy to know that she has an extended family large enough to rotate through: she had a mommy and two daddies and establishes a pattern of nights with me, breakfast with Daddy #1 and dinner with Daddy #2. I very much like having a part-time dog.

But I worried about the potential puppies that were certain to come: yes, the three of us were taking care of the one dog between us, but what if she had a litter of puppies? With the poverty in the village, there is no way it could absorb litter after litter of puppies. And then it was time to go to Cape Town for the Christmas holiday. I knew I’d be gone for nearly a month, but it seemed between the three of us, arrangements were made for her care and feeding. (But I would learn on my return that she hadn’t been fed or cared for.) In my leaving, I decided if she were still be around on my return, getting her cleaned up and see about spaying.

I cried at leaving the dog when I left (already so attached) but hoped she would find a magical, happy family to care for her in my absence. (Like THIS would happen in rural South Africa!)

I returned, a severe storm passed my village in my absence, Ounaai’s #1 dad’s trailer had flipped, and I worried that Ounaai were lying dead under it. On my second day home, she returned in all of her wiggly-all-over happiness. (Actually, she had returned that very same night I’d arrived, but I didn’t recognize it her scratching at the door.)

So, as I had promised, I set about treating the fleas and the worms and the ear mites. I gave her a bath and picked ticks off of her and made her greatly perturbed. And then of course, it would not go away—the biggest of all dreads: I would have to address the potential puppy problem. I phoned vet after vet, called the State Veterinarians in two towns, visited the public library for information, and even went to my shopping town’s city newspaper to plead: I need money to have this dog spayed. Can you help me? I was told “no” in every instance. (South Africa, it seems, at least in Vryburg, has no charity or organization dedicated to spaying and neutering dogs and cats, and you can just imagine the pet problem in the villages. To have Ounaai spayed is just a drop in the large sea of the problem.) I was crying on the phone and two of my family members, sensing my distress, mailed me the money to have her spayed.

So, Ounaai Chakkra was spayed yesterday. It was an ordeal for both of us. For her, it was a first time on a collar/leash, first time in a car, first time in a vet’s clinic, first time to have a surgical procedure. For me, it was a couple of weeks of begging for money, and begging even more for a ride to the veterinarian, feeling very anxious about the plans for the ride not working out (as I am still experiencing “indirect communication” in South Africa, which is people telling me things that are not true, like, “Yes, I’ll pick you up at 4:00,” but then not showing until well past 6:00, when the vet’s office has closed, and I can no longer wait in their office, and I’m carrying a very groggy, freshly spayed dog, wrapped in her bloody sheet, crying, because it’s after 6:00 pm, I’m an hour away from my village, will need to catch a public taxi that will probably not pick me up because most of the people on the taxis, including the driver, have a deep-seated fear of dogs, on a Friday night, when everyone is drinking, and it is nearly dark. So I’m crying, and walking, and the guy eventually comes, but it was a very long day.)

So, Ounaai is spayed, I’ve had laundered all of the blood and fear out of my clothes and her bedding, she is resting now, on my furniture, convalescing because I feel it is the least I can do after the trauma I caused. After all of this investment, she will officially become “my dog.”

So, why all this trouble now, for a dog, from the famously-proclaimed, “Not I”?

It has been a difficult 18 months for me: I’ve lost my home; I’ve lost family members; and my sons continue to struggle horribly with consequences of their life choices. I feel far away and powerless. I come to South Africa and live with people that live in tin shacks, with no heat or air, little to eat, and have rags for clothes. I see orphaned children in shoes that are so worn, they are barely recognized as shoes. I see children so malnourished, their hair is brittle and discolored. I see children that play by breaking glass bottles, because that is all for them to play with. I see domestic animals and pets starving, because their owners can’t even feed themselves. And I feel powerless.

And then the light bulb: I care about this one dog, because I can do something to help her. I have the power to help with this one small, living creature, to decrease her suffering. I can stop the suffering of one living creature in this great big world of pain and suffering. (Actually, in her spaying, I may be preventing future litters of dogs and puppies from suffering starvation, neglect, and abuse.) I can’t do anything for my sons; I can’t do anything for the suffering people in my community; I can’t do anything to alleviate suffering in Africa; I can’t do anything to alleviate the suffering of the world. But I can do something for this one, small, suffering animal. I’ve cleaned her up and had her spayed.

So, I have a dog. Maybe now I can better understand and appreciate the American need for doggy-day care. After all, while living in the wealthiest country of the world, isn’t there a lot of pain and suffering we cannot alleviate?

Soon,

Karen